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Storm Knights
The Storm Knights was the Storm Covenant's attempt to reproduce the Promethean Knights utilised by their Forerunner benefactor, the Ur-Didact. While crude compared to the Knights, Storm Knights were lethal, uncompromising and deadly combatants, but thankfully few in numbers. While created by the Storm Covenant, some units would go on to function even after the faction fell apart, as the private guards of high members of the Storm Covenant that escaped persecution. History Origins The Storm Knights were originally the brain child of Storm Covenant general Aruk Olros. Original posted to Jul 'Mdama's fleet during their 6 month occupation of Requiem. A gifted engineer, he'd spent the war studying captured human technology, recovered forerunner relics and artificial intelligences, becoming one of the leading experts on these things. As a member of the Storm Covenant, he'd designed several armour upgrades, several ship refits and the oversaw the creation of the Forge Ships, mobile factories capable of constructing weapons, vehicles, starcraft, warships and materiel. Once he joined the occupying forces at Requiem, he was granted permission by Jul 'Mdama to investigation Promethean technology. While banned from dissecting Promethean Knights, he was allowed to study them in great depth, their construction, components and produced dozens of journals on their designs. While he desired to emulate it, he lacked the knowledge and technology to create an artificial intelligence. That is, until one of his expeditions discovered a Composer device. While substantially smaller than the one employed by the Ur-Didact against Earth, the device could Compose a single individual. Spurred on by this find, he began to develop the mechanical platform necessary to host a warrior. When UNSC forces returned to Requiem six months after their first visit, Aruk fled with his handful of warships, under the basis of escorting important artefacts off the planet, though in truth he wished to continue his research in private, away from the overbearing leaders of the Storm Covenant. Eventually finalising his design, he successfully composed a single,. fanatical warrior into a new body. An amazing success, the new warrior exceeded all expectations. However, attempting to enter mass production was marred by numerous failures, slow manufacturing time and the interference of 'Mdama. Infuriated by the fact a squadron of his most advanced warships simply pulled out of a vital battle, he'd seen no sight of these supposed relics that Aruk had fled with and was now in desperate need of new ships and new materiel. Aruk gained back Jul's favour by presenting his first five Storm Knights before him. Jul was so pleased by this that he resumed funding and expected mass production by the end of the year. First Deployments While still at small scale production and prototyping stage, a squadron of the first active Storm Knights were deployed to battle UNSC forces on Corvus. Reinforcing the growing Storm Covenant presence there, 5 Knights went into battle against several platoons of UNSC soldiers and came out on top, leaving no survivors. The commanding officer gave such a glowing report that every theatre commander demanded a unit of Storm Knights. This was entrenched by their next deployment, a unit of 20 Storm Knights who struck behind enemy lines on Corvus, in the process destroying a UNSC command base and capturing several officers. After that, a 10 man detachment came up against two Spartan-IV teams, Achilles and Scorpio team, exterminating them to a man. The testimony of the lone survivor, and the one downed Storm Knight, was the only evidence the UNSC even had of their existence. Mass Production Given the successes of the prototype in the field, Aruk focused on cracking the only hurdle between him and mass production, the Composer. The devices were too few to be used efficiently and too delicate to be mass deployed. Eventually, his team successfully reverse engineered the device, allowing them to reproduce it. As a result, he could disseminate the design of the Storm Knight and composer, allowing commanders to produce them, though many had so little materiel that they couldn't enter full scale production. Aruk meanwhile, had no such problems. His Forge Ship, the Didact's Wrath, had been refitted to produce vast amounts of Storm Knights at a time. However, the pool of aspirants quickly dried up, as the deeply fanatical and loyal warriors that would undergo the procedure became few and far between. Quickly losing favour, Aruk did something drastic. His forces attacked a small colony on the edge of Sangheili space and took every man, woman and child prisoner. Changing the programming of the composers, he fed them into the machines, almost doubling his army in a few days. Now one of the most favoured generals in the Storm Covenant, nothing could stop him. Or so he thought. Failures Nothing could seem to stop the Storm Knights, and Aruk found himself one of 'Mdama's most favoured lieutenants. When Hesduros, the home of the Storm Covenant came under attack, every asset the Storm Covenant had was thrown into its defence. This attack by the Sangheili Republic was spurred on by the actions of Aruk and his peers, who had been callously attacking civilian populaces, in Aruk's case, for more soldiers, but others had enslaved them, or even experimented on them. Given that Hesdruos was one of the few worlds that produced large amounts of recruits and materiels for the Storm Covenant, and formed one of its main base of operations, 'Mdama decreed it could not fall. During the resulting space battle and landfall, numerous Storm Knight units were thrown into the fray. Outside the capital of Panom Keep, one of the largest assembled units of Storm Knights, numbering almost 9000 Knights, went to battle under the command of Luni Panom, next in line to become Kaidon of Panom, and high ranking officer in the Storm Covenant by way of family links. Encountering the Ulru and Hr'ath Field Groups in direct combat, the Knights annihilated them in open combat, achieving a 80:1 kill to death ratio. The annihilation wrought on the Republic threw them back, and Panom elected to press the advantage. Taking almost half of the Storm Knight warriors stationed on the world, he assaulted their landing zone in a blind rush, attempting to storm it, and then their carrier. The resulting battle was an absolute massacre, as the Storm Knights charged across the steppes to the landing zone encountered a legion of armoured vehicles. While mighty, they were no match for a rolling tide of armoured vehicles. Torn to pieces, the entire attacking force was destroyed, Luni Panom was killed, and the defending forces of Panom Keep was so weakened that the Republic forces simply marched in. With over half of his Storm Knights destroyed on the field of battle, Aruk did what he did best and fled. Pulling back, he seized as many prisoners and civilians as he could to regenerate his numbers and pulled his forces back from the battle. The resulting gap allowed Republic ships to split 'Mdama's fleet in half, and cut him off from the majority of his ships, forcing him to watch as the Republic destroyed them piecemeal. Now cut off from the Storm Covenant, and fallen from grace, the use of his Storm Knights fell too. Now reduced to no more than a wandering bandit, his dwindling fleet operated at the edge of known space, until they heeded the call to arms by 'Mdama. Fall of the Storm Knights Gathering his forces, 'Mdama planned to strike at Sanghelios itself, in order to offset the Republic and give the Storm Covenant time to heal their wounds. Attempting to win back favour, Aruk brought his now huge army of Storm Knights to the fleet, planning to increase their numbers tenfold over Sanghelios. The first stage of the battle involved capturing the border nexus of Blood Point, which after a bloody battle was captured and occupied, to be the main jumping point to Sanghelios. Orbiting the world for six days and nights, the Ascension Chambers on the Didact's Wrath, where prisoners were composed, never ceased. Now almost 70,000 strong, they were going to lead the way on the home world, just behind the planned viral bombardment to wipe out resistance. However, a single Knight, his faith shaken by what he had seen and done over the course of the bloody war, fled, heading to the Republic. Telling them of their plan, and their strategies, the Republic strengthened their defences significantly. When 'Mdama's fleet got to Sanghelios, he expected only light resistance. He instead he found 4 fleets waiting for him. Cut off from their retreat, the Storm Covenant fleet was forced to fight their way out, losing half of their ships in the process. Many of the assault ships carrying armies of Storm Knights were destroyed in the void, their charges destroyed or cast out in space, to float in the endless void for eternity. The Storm Covenant was near broken, and many ships scattered to the 4 corners of Sangheili space. On 'Mdama's orders, Aruk was to head out of known space to link with an allied fleet, ahead to secure a significant Forerunner weapon and return to him. This proved to be a huge miscalculation, as this weapon turned out to be The Traveller, resting in her Cryptum, in a meditative xankara. Disturbed from her rest, her vengeance was great, and her army of Promethean Knights tore through the Storm Knights with ease. While Aruk would escape, to begin a slow decay into obscurity, his Forge Ship, the Didact's Wrath, was destroyed in the ensuing battle, and almost every Storm Knight under his command was destroyed. While several independent units would go on producing them in small numbers for years, Storm Knights were never produced in such numbers ever again, and themselves eventually faded away to nothing. Famous Members Design The Storm Knight were designed by the very best armour and weapon smiths of the Storm Covenant to empitomise lethality. Taking cues from designs of the Promethean Knights and automatons of Sangheili history, they were also influenced by the designs of the Storm Covenant's most feared enemy, the demonic Spartans. While crude compared to the Promethean Knight, and the UNSC's exotic profile Project Siren, it was a dedicated combat unit, optimised for fighting the UNSC at close quarters. Creation Like Promethean Knights, the creation of a Storm Knight required blood sacrifice. The Storm Covenant recovered numerous relics during their rise to power, including several functional Composer devices. Reverse engineering these, they attempted to replicate the indomitable army of their god, the Promethean Knights. Using their own Sublimation Device, they could extract the mental patterns of an individual and implant them into an external device. Several lab facilities created 'ascension chambers' for this to be done, allowing Storm Knights to be created at a low rate. These initial Knights were created from loyal soldiers, meaning the creators required no programming constraints to hold them, however, later instances used forced populations and prisoners, requiring them to install programming guards to prevent them from rebelling. These Ascension Chambers grew in number, allowing the Storm Covenant to field more and more Storm Knights, the largest example being Didact's Wrath, a Forge Ship refitted to Compose 3,000 individuals in a day and implant them into freshly built Storm Knight bodies, which produced almost 130,000 Storm Knights until it was destroyed, ironically by one of the Iso-Didact's disciples, The Traveller. Storm Covenant doctrine demanded that only Sangheili be used for the Storm Knights, and any Sangheili would do. Republic prisoners, colonists, women, children, any were fair game. A few unscrupulous commanders would use Kig-Yar, Jiralhanae and humans though. Such industrial level Composers functioned like abattoirs, with lines of prisoners waiting to be fed into the Ascension Chambers. Prisoners outside would be incapable of seeing inside the chambers, and unable to hear the screams of those inside. The chambers would clean themselves of the ash-like by-product and then compose the next individual. Cerebral Matrix The Cerebral Matrix is the centre of the Storm Knight and provides all control. The mental patterns of the composed are imprinted in the Cerebral Matrix, which begins to develop as an A.I.-like entity. Unrestricted Storm Knights retain all of the knowledge of their prior life, their memories, their skills, while restricted Knights, usually forcefully composed, retain few memories and skills, have programming embedded in their code to ensure loyalty and are 'flash' trained in combat, making combat capable units in just under 8 hours. This cerebral matrix is linked to all systems in the unit, and is placed in the head, and while armoured, is vulnerable to enemy fire. Power Systems The power for the Storm Knight consists of a micro plasma reactor embedded in the chest. This provides power for the shields, movement and weapon systems. While powerful, its also highly volatile, and a penetrative shot will cause the Storm Knight to explode in a ball of fire. While successive levels of armour and fail safes protect it, explosives will often cause near instant rupture of the reactor. It can also be used as a makeshift bomb to prevent capture, or as a last resort. Armour and Defence The Storm Knight focuses heavily on defence, with a primary armour layer made up of super-dense alloys and damage resistant polymers. This armour rivals that of light vehicles and often allows a Knight to survive substantial amounts of fire before it begins to fail. This is backed up by secondary plating protecting joints, which is made up of weaves of damage resistant by flexible polymers. This armour is usually painted to represent the rank of the warrior within. The shielding systems are reliable, and equal to that of an ultra, giving them even more protection. The armour can also project a fixed plasma shield, similar to that of a Kig-Yar, to protect them during an advance. Sensors The primary sensors of a Storm Knight are the pair of ocular sensors mounted on each side of the head. These provide accurate vision to several thousand meters, and thermal enhancement. This allows the Storm Knight to be incredibly precise in battle. It also has ocular sensors for detecting sounds, even those out of immediate visual range, and pinpointing their location. It also has a Covenant designed motion sensor, capable of detecting and tracking targets, even through thick foliage. Motor Systems To provide motor control, it is powered by bundles of artificial muscle fibre, constructed from mixes of high strength, high-tensile polymers. They could take significant punishment, give the Knight unbelievable speed and strength, and thanks to their speed of light reactions, allowing them to be incredibly fast. This allowed them to run as fast as most medium ground vehicles, jump large gaps, and lift five times their own considerable weight. They could also leap from large heights and survive. For increased movement they were increased with two high-power plasma motors, utilising plasma straight from the reactor. This allowed them to make longer leaps, scaling large gaps and leaping up several stories, like Sangheili Rangers. Weapon Systems Unlike the Promethean Knight, Storm Knights only have one integral weapon, a plasma sword. Ideal for dismembering enemies at close range, these large swords are more than capable of cutting a enemy soldier in two. It can also carry any standard firearm with its hands, such as Storm Rifles, Concussion Rifles or even Fuel Rod Guns, and is strong enough to carry and fire rifles from a single hand.